The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek is a fantastic book for any leader and particularly organization leaders. Simon Sinek is a writer and speaker that focuses on organizational transformation through leadership and building people. He runs the Optimism Company. He wrote Start with Why, Leaders Eat Last, and, more recently, The Infinite Game. I believe it’s his best book yet. Here is a 25 minute talk that Simon Sinek gave to educators about the Infinite Game that I highly recommend. Organizational leaders must approach leadership with an Infinite Game mindset in which courageous and caring leaders lead with purpose, passion, and energy. We cannot manage people. We must lead them and build trusting teams.
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We are five months into the 252 Circle and just completed our monthly group call last night (May 6). Overall, I am thrilled with the progress of the group members and their commitment to making consistent choices to grow intellectually, physically, spiritually, and relationally and reach their stated goals. I am learning more about the process and how to be encouraging and (as needed) challenging to the group members. It's truly a remarkable group - and as I reflect upon each successive call I grow in appreciation for them and the efforts they're putting in to make progress.
The format for the class is that we just talk and catch up for 10-15 minutes and ask how people are doing with family, job, etc. Then we take a few minutes for each person to provide an update on their goals and how they're doing. It's an open discussion where we discuss highs and lows - successes and failures - in taking steps to reach our goals. We're able to advise, suggest ideas, and encourage various members in their pursuit. We also spend time praying asking for God's grace and strength to be at work in us (and through us) as we seek to love Him and others with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. I'm excited for the coming months! The monthly goals for May look a lot like monthly goals from April with a few tweaks. It's been said that consistency is more important than intensity - and I tend to agree. Personal growth can appear boring at times in regards to a lack of variety, but that is ok for me. I don't mind boring.
Daily Goals for May
Monthly Goals for May:
Yearly 252 Goals: 1. Spiritual: Memorize the first two chapters of Philippians. 2. Physical: Complete a Half-Ironman in under 5 hours. 3. Relational: Eat a one on one meal with each of my sons and my wife at least once a month. 4. Intellectual: Write a reflection post here each week. Overall I'm very thankful for the progress in April. Here is a quick recap of the month:
Daily Goals for April
Monthly Goals for April:
One of my goalsl this month has been to do a 24 hour fast. I accomplished that about two weeks ago; but I've been talking to a friend of mine who is part of our 252 Circle this year and he has done some remarkable multi-day fasts recently and seen great results. While weight-loss is an immediate benefit, multi-day fasts help us realize how much influence food has one our choices and gives us an opportunity to exert more self-control to ensure we are controlling our food choices rather than being controlled by our food desires.
So, I started a 72 hour fast last night (Thursday) at 8PM. I plan to fast at least 72 hours and maybe longer depending on how it goes. My starting weight is 165 and we'll see how much I can lost. My goal weight for the end of April is 158 and I'm hopeful I can make significant progress towards that goal over the next few days. I will consume lots of water, some bone broth, some electrolytes, and minimal juices to maintain hydration and nutrients. Last Friday and Saturday I had the privilege to take around twenty student leaders to an off-site leadership retreat in North Carolina. We had a blast together hanging out, playing volleyball, eating remarkable food (that tasted way better than stereotypical "camp" food!) and spending time in sessions learning about leadership.
We conducted a Q&A time with the student leaders so they could ask anything and everything to the Center for Leadership Development team. The students asked great questions, and we tried to give helpful answers. When talking about successful leaders at one point, I referenced Jim Collins' book Good to Great and how the transformational leaders that took companies from "good" to "great" (based on Collins' metrics described in the book) demonstrated two qualities: Humility and Determination. When a leader of any group or organization remains humble and hard-working, there's no telling what God can do with that leader. I trust it was an encouraging challenge to the students (and reminder to the Center for Leadership Development team) that we can strive to lead with humility and with an attitude of perseverance and stick-with-it-ness to build people while completing projects and accomplishing tasks. We're excited for a great year of student leadership! This weekend a visiting missionary to Uganda spoke at my church. He was talking about the importance of relationships and the relative unimportance of time. He was describing the culture of the unreached people group and referenced an African Proverb used there. Here is the paraphrased version of the proverb:
"You don't really know someone until you can sit with them and do nothing." I researched the quote but couldn't find any real information about the quote, but I nonetheless appreciate the emphasis the quote communicates about the importance of simply being in contrast to doing. God created us as human beings - not human doings. He has certainly called us to action, but our actions aren't who we are - they are what we do (because of who we are). Perhaps the inspired version of this idea can be found in Psalm 91:1 - "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty." May our stillness and abiding with God help us to know Him more. April can be a challenging month for maintaining healthy habits and personal discipline with so many events and activities. I hope to be ready and do my best to accomplish these goals:
Daily Goals for April
Monthly Goals for April:
Yearly 252 Goals with Updates 1. Spiritual: Memorize the first two chapters of Philippians. 2. Physical: Complete a Half-Ironman in under 5 hours. 3. Relational: Eat a one on one meal with each of my sons and my wife at least once a month. 4. Intellectual: Write a reflection post here each week. This year I have several annual goals (posted below) and am setting monthly goals to get me to the annual goals and have a little fun along the way. Here is an update on my March goals. It was a fairly good month overall, especially considering we brought our infant son home from the hospital February 28.
Yearly 252 Goals with Updates 1. Spiritual: Memorize the first two chapters of Philippians. 2. Physical: Complete a Half-Ironman in under 5 hours. 3. Relational: Eat a one on one meal with each of my sons and my wife at least once a month. 4. Intellectual: Write a reflection post here each week. My oldest son turned 8 yesterday. We had a fun celebration for him - and he seemed to enjoy the gifts, birthday cake, and games. In fact, as I write this in our living room he's a few feet away from me putting together one of the lego sets he received as a gift. My soon-to-be-5-year-old is also in the same room as I type running around trying to keep a leftover birthday balloon in the air before it hits the ground. And my wife is caring for our newborn in the bedroom. We did the quick math and realized that about the time our newborn is the age of our soon-to-be-5-year-old that our old son that turned 8 yesterday will be a teenager. It was a crazy moment and reminder how time flies.
I've been thinking a lot lately about David Brooks' introduce to his book The Road to Character in which he discuss the difference between résumé virtues and eulogy virtues. He writes: "Recently I've been thinking about the difference between the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the ones you list on your résumé, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They're the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being—whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed. Most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé virtues, but I confess that for long stretches of my life I've spent more time thinking about the latter than the former…Most of us have clearer strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how to develop a profound character.” It is my hope and prayer that I live with eulogy virtues as a priority so my wife and sons can learn what's most important in this life - and the next. |